Pakistan suicide bomber rams US vehicle, kills five

A suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into another near a building occupied by the UN refugee agency in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday, killing five people, including two Americans, a regional information minister and police said.

A suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into another near a building occupied by the UN refugee agency in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday, killing five people, including two Americans, a regional information minister and police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which left a crater along a busy street. Firemen extinguished flames of a vehicle that was mangled and blackened from the blast.

The two Americans worked in the US consulate, regional information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told reporters. He said five people were killed and that the Americans had been moving across the city with security guards.

The US consulate in Peshawar had no immediate comment.

Television stations repeatedly broadcast an image of a US passport at the scene, its corners burned by the flames.

Pakistan's Taliban, who are close to al Qaeda, are blamed for many of the suicide bombings across Pakistan, a strategic US ally. Those attacks had eased in recent months but it was not clear if the lull was due to pressure from military offensives or a shift in tactics.

Meanwhile, Pakistan on Monday condemned the brazen bomb attack on a US consulate vehicle in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

"The Government of Pakistan strongly condemns the bomb attack on US personnel working in their Consulate in Peshawar," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Hillary Clinton condemns attackSecretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday denounced the "cowardly" attack against US consulate personnel in Pakistan and praised local authorities' response to the scene.

Clinton, on a visit to Jakarta shortly after the bombing in Peshawar, said that she wanted to "very clearly condemn the attack on our consulate personnel".